


a change is gonna come

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-24
Updated: 2008-07-24
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: today's summary comes from john barrowman himself - "like captain jack, i'll never say never."





	

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!  
Smoothed by long fingers,  
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,  
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.  
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,  
have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

Excerpt from, "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"  
T. S. Eliot

  
Ianto knows it’s all about sex for a reason.

Ianto knows it’s a choice Jack made, to not follow him home until after at least a year or not promise him anything, not in words, a choice made to keep his ever-lonely heart intact. Ianto knows there are things that cannot be remembered in Jack’s past, knows enough of the Archives to be intimately familiar with Jack’s history. And most of the time, that’s all right. He understands very clearly that Jack needs to play a role in every relationship, whether the monster or the hero, and most of the time Ianto is content to indulge him. But there are moments, moments like this one, lying on Ianto’s sofa dozing in the warm evening light coming through the balcony window, listening to music that is soothing and low, when letting Jack play the messiah is just not enough.

Ianto takes a breath, stutters a word into the heat-driven air.

“Jack – ” and then he stops, closes his mouth, not ready just yet, the words not complete in his head. Jack just makes an ‘mm’ sound into his hair and rubs his nose in the dark strands, half-asleep, comfortable, braces off and shirt unbuttoned, as naked as it is ever permissible to be (without actually being naked) in Jack’s own world of airtight rules. “Nothing. Never mind.” He can feel Jack breathe deeply beneath his back, feel the opening of the ribcage, the intake of air. It’s comforting, this touch, this connection, not necessarily limited to skin to skin.

“Not nothing,” Jack breathes into his neck, where his shirt collar touches his body. “Can hear you thinking.”

Ianto smiles and rolls his eyes, good-naturedly (because when was the last time he was anything else?). “I’m always thinking, Jack. You are too, don’t deny it.”

Jack just smiles and sighs. “Not thinking now.” Ianto wishes desperately that were true, but he knows better. Jack is thinking about the time, about the Rift, perhaps about the way Ianto himself smells, but mostly about things that Ianto will never fully know and never fully understand.

He wonders, of himself, if that’s the reason that sex is the only answer. If that’s the reason Jack prefers body-to-body rather than eye-to-eye, the reason he can fuck a man and hate him at the same time. Because Jack has something no-one else has, something no-one else can fathom.

Ianto wants to try.

He stretches a little on the sofa, twists and hears his overworked back pop behind him. Wonders if the words are enough, wonders if he shouldn’t tell Jack with his touch instead. I want you. I love you. I can’t stand it when you shut me away. I’m here to listen to anything you have to say. Can’t you see the way I look at you?

Instead, he breathes deeply one last time and opens his mouth.

“Jack.”

“Ianto.”

“The next time he comes, please don’t go.”

When Jack stutters a nod against his skin, Ianto lets the breath out again.


End file.
